


Forgiveness

by whateverthehellwewant



Category: The 100
Genre: Bellarke, Gen, after season 2 finale, clarke's adventures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 21:52:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverthehellwewant/pseuds/whateverthehellwewant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After season 2 finale of the 100, Clarke doesn't go into camp Jaha.  She goes back into the woods, where it all started.  She runs into someone who helps her healing process.  Sometimes you need to be alone and sometimes you need a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> It's a work in progress, but I wanted to share it

She slashed open the attacker’s throat and quickly turned around to the sound of movement. There stood a blonde just a bit older than herself pulling a knife out of a giant, who fell just in front of her own feet.  She stared down the girl standing there, gripping her knife just a little bit tighter.

“What is the meaning of this?” Her body just on the verge of attacking if the reply doesn’t please her.

The blonde’s eyes shifted to the dead body and then back up to the dark red haired girl. “He was going to kill you.”

“He was going to attack me.” Her face barely moved as she spoke.  “Not kill me.”  The blonde’s face scrunched faintly.  “What’s your name?” 

“Clarke,” she said as she shifted her feet, “yours?”

She squinted at her. “Ash.” Her chin lifted slightly, as her eyes scanned the blonde. “So do you have some kind of savior complex, Clarke?”  The name sounded sharp like an arrow shot through her shoulder.

Clarke looked down at her knife and wiped the blood off on her pants.  Her hair fell over her face, hiding her expression.  “Most people would say thank you to someone who just saved them.”  She tucked her knife into her belt and raised an eyebrow at the tense warrior. 

Her knife lowered just enough for Clarke to breathe easily. “Where do your loyalties lie?”

The words almost got caught in her throat. “With myself.”

Ash stifled a laugh. “Where are your roots?”

“The sky people.” Clarke didn’t make eye contact.  Ash smirked and smeared her bloody knife on the shirt of the dead person, before placing it in the slot on her back.  She walked over to her pack on the ground. “And where do your loyalties lie, Ash?”

“Myself.”  She chuckled over her shoulder.  “My parents were of _Trigeda_ , the Woods Clan, but there was a misunderstanding with the Commander. So they ran, and now they’re dead.”  Clarke stared, as Ash grabbed something and threw her pack over her shoulder. When Ash saw the compassion in her eyes, she warned, “Empathy doesn’t help anybody, especially not a savior.” Ash felt Clarke’s heavy silence.

Suddenly Clarke had to catch an object Ash just hurdled at her. “What’s this?” She looks down at the vessel in her hand. 

Ash shrugs. “A thank you.” Clarke pulls the top off and smells it.  “Why would I keep poison in my pack? It’s water, you ungrateful dehydrated _keyron_.” Clarke slowly nods and sips the offering. “I got plenty more where that came from.” 

Clarke is taken back by the kindness on Ash’s once hardened face.  Clarke carefully places the top back on the bottle. The hesitation is all over her face.

“What?  You got somewhere else to be, Clarke?” Ash snapped.  “Am I keeping you from something?”

Clarke keeps her emotions reigned in, so Ash nods and starts to trek through the woods.  Clarke follows silently.

It wasn’t a rigorous hike through the woods; Clarke could keep up with Ash’s speed and agility no problem. But Ash’s feet would step so confidently in just the right places.  And about every five minutes Clarke had to stop abruptly because she was off balance and got too close to Ash’s heels.  Clarke would watch Ash’s hands brush along the trees’ bark. Sometimes when everything was calm, Clarke’s breathing would hitch.  Ash knew the environment wasn’t the reason for it, so they kept walking.

Clarke never opens her mouth to fill the silence.  Ash feels that she wants to.  Neither of them know how long they’ve been walking.  Just now the sun is dipping into the trees.  Clarke doesn’t perk up when she hears running water. A clearing unfolds in front of them, and a rocky path leads them to the river.  They both sit on a massive rock. 

“So what are you running from, Clarke?” Her name sounds smoother but heavy.

Each breath was heard over the running stream.  “The past.” Clarke tilts her head to look over at Ash. 

Ash leans back and looks up at the sky.  “What kind of answer is that?”  Amused by the blonde.

“A less complicated one.” Clarke watches the lazy water, and Ash peeks at her and smiles.

“Oh, but I love complicated.” Ash nudges.   

Clarke’s face drops. She bends over to fill up her water bottle.  Ash watches the subtle way the sun hits her face.  She breathes as if something is trapped in her lungs.  The poor girl, Ash thinks, has experience beyond her years.

“You know what? Don’t tell me,” she murmurs. “There’s not enough time we have in this world to tell each other every single one of our secrets.”

Clarke sets the bottle down, takes a handful of water, and washes her face.  Ash takes off her jacket and starts to scrub the dirt and blood off her hands. 

 “Your arm?” Clarke takes a hold of Ash’s arm with a bloody gash across it. Instinctually, Ash has a knife to Clarke’s neck in under a second.  Clarke freezes. “It will get infected. I’m a healer of sorts,” she coaxed. Ash smirks, holding the knife up to her neck just a few seconds longer before relaxing. Clarke lets out a long uneven breath, still tense.

Ash unwraps the poorly bandaged cut.  She cleans the cloth and soaks the cut with the water, hissing in the process.  She then looks up at Clarke, who watches with wide eyes. “You have nothing to fear from me, Clarke,” Ash promised, as she places the rag in Clarke’s hand.  Then Ash gently grabs her hand to lead it to the open wound. 

Clarke tentatively starts washing it out.  Ash shuts her eyes and becomes completely stiff.  Clarke does what she can to protect the wound from getting infected. She’s seen worse and has healed it with less.  When she finishes wrapping it, Ash grabs her hand causing Clarke to jump back.

Ash focuses on Clarke’s eyes. “Thank you,” she declares honestly.  Clarke searches this stranger’s face, as if she finally understood the action she just observed. When a faint smile appears on Clarke’s face, Ash lets go and busies herself filling up her own bottles of water.

“How long have you been on your own?”  Clarke softly puts it out there.

Ash’s eyes remain on the stream.  “We left right after the commander picked her second.  54 days after is when I was left alone.” The blonde stared at the back of her head.  “Had a shelter though. A good supply of food. Knew how to live out here. So I was well off.” Ash sat back.  “ _Tel emo op yu laik nowe branwoda, ba den yu na gonplei ste nowe odon.”_

“What does that mean?”

“Tell them all that you are not worthless, but then your fight will never be over.”  Ash laughs. “My mother was a riddle.” She takes a sip of her water. “Father was a warrior.”

A bit of silence passed. “My father died trying to tell everyone that they were in danger. My mother…” She trailed off.

“I don’t much care for sad stories, Clarke. Especially when you can’t look me in the eye when you tell them.” Clarke looked up to meet Ash’s eyes, but she is staring at the water rushing by.  “You can know someone’s story just by their eyes.”

Clarke’s eyes couldn’t leave their fixed point on Ash’s profile.  The blonde listened intently.  Ash’s eyelids blinked lazily.  Her breathing was deep and quiet.  The air seemed pale around her.  Clarke couldn’t see the details of Ash’s skin.  It was like all clarity left her. Like water was running over her thoughts.

“Your relationship with your mother has been threatened by many outside sources, but also by the other’s actions.  It’s been at the back of your mind for so long, but now,” Clarke flinches and darts her eyes away when she sees Ash’s red hair start to move, “you’ve accepted the past.” Ash doesn’t reach her hand out to touch Clarke’s. “That’s a good thing, Clarke.” 

The blonde fiddles with a string coming off her shirt. “You can tell all of that by my eyes?” She looks up at the sun peering through the trees.

“If I listen very closely.” A smirk comes off in her tone.

“How?” The string unravels a bit between her thumb and finger.

“Spend many days with your memories, and soon you will hear the world whispering its secrets to you.” Plop.  A rock drops into the water. “We are creatures of thoughts and actions.” Plop.  It splashes.  “See the actions.  Know the thoughts.”  Plop. It ripples.  “They replay every night in my head. Every memory with every detail.” Plop.  “I used to ask myself why.  I asked myself where it went wrong. Every night I pleaded for someone to tell me the answer.” Plop.  “But no one replied.”  Plop.  “So I figured it out myself.” Plop.  “And there wasn’t a time and place where it went wrong.  It was all simply unfolding in front of me.  I was just too obvious to see it.”  Plop… Plop… Plop. “Clarke.”  It melted everything away.

The blonde stared at the stone in Ash’s hand out stretched to her. 

“You have to be crazy to throw a pebble in a stream full of rocks.” Ash smiles and continues. “Sure it ripples the surface, but in the end it sinks to the bottom with the rest of them.”

Clarke’s fingertips linger on Ash’s palm as she rolls the pebble into her own grip. “It’s pointless, really.” The blonde looks at the gray smooth stone with speckles sparkling in the ray of sunlight. Plop. 

“It’s going to be dark soon. Follow the stream to the tree with no bark.  Then take 13 pines south.  There will be a metal door under a pile of leaves.  Next to a huge boulder.”  Ash gets up and pulls her jacket back on.  The stiffness of her left arm hinders her speed.

“What?” Clarke stands.

“Home sweet home. Come if you chose. And if this is where we part ways,” Ash locks eyes with Clarke, “remember… running away only means the thing behind you is stronger than you.” Clarke swallows. “You have all the strength in the world, savior.”


End file.
